Our left-leaning columnist now regrets his vote for President Obama.
My name is Kevin Field, and I’m a recovering Obamaniac. (Or Obamamaniac – I’ve never been told which is the correct usage.) I helped elect Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States… but now I’m starting to think my friends at hillaryis44.com and noquarterblog.net are right: Barack Obama is a fraud!
Over the last two years, the rise of Barack Obama as a legitimate Presidential candidate thrilled me to my core. For the first time in our nation’s history, we had actual proof that our inherently bigoted culture had thrown off the shackles of slavery and come to love all things African-American. With each rise of Barack in the polls, America proved herself to be less and less racist. That was a beautiful thing to experience. And if my favored candidate, Dennis Kucinich, was proving to be less than viable in the polling, at least we could get behind the inspiration of Barack Obama.
And I did my part as a good citizen to support him. I bought two bumper stickers – one for my Prius and another for the frame of my mountain bike. I signed up for email updates from his campaign. I told a neighbor I’d let them put an Obama yard sign on my front lawn. I even purchased three Obama t-shirts and wore them to work on every single casual Friday over the course of three months... when my company’s Employee Code of Conduct expressly forbids political speech. Yet I risked my own livelihood to show support for Barack Obama. That is dedication. My blood, sweat and tears helped lead him to the White House.
But now that the honeymoon is over, ask yourself: what has Obama done? What has he honestly done to improve our country, other than give a decent speech? He’s already had one month in office to make good on his campaign promises, but we’ve seen precious little in return. He’s been all about the economy, twenty-four hours a day, just like any good little capitalist. (I’ve got news for you: all it takes to solve our economic malaise is progressive taxation on corporations and the top one percent of wage earners. And I’m not even an economist.)
While it pains me to do this, we need to take a sampling of promises President Obama made during the campaign that he’s already broken, in order that we may shine light into the darkness, and bring attention to his lies:
Leave Iraq. The issue that got him elected, Obama made clear that the American occupation of sovereign Iraq was a mistake that we were no longer willing to pay with our nation’s blood and treasure. But surprise! While he recently said he “wants” to leave by the end of 2010 (hardly the immediate withdrawal he had hinted at in his speeches), there is supposedly going to be a force of up to 50,000 troops assisting the Iraqis after that, for years to come. Sorry!
Sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I know the United States isn’t fond of making nice with the UN, but it’s already March 2009. What’s the delay? The disabled have rights. We need to stand up in support of those who can’t stand up themselves. Because of their disabilities.
Improve high school graduation rates. As someone who was lucky enough to receive a first-rate education at home, I can still understand that not everyone is lucky enough to have loving parents/partners invest their time and effort teaching their children. Nonetheless, it is schooling, no matter where and how it’s accomplished, that is the only way to allow a teenage flower to bloom. So this is an issue near and dear to my heart. Yet it clearly isn’t a priority for the President, as evinced by the fact that his own Department of Education has so far refused my repeated requests for the 2009 graduation rates. What’s the matter, Barack? Got something to hide?
Double the Peace Corps. Now, to be clear, I didn’t take part in the Peace Corps, nor do I know anyone who did. But traveling the world and meeting people has always sounded like a good idea to me. And yet Obama has yet to make good on his offer to increase the Peace Corps by 200 percent – another broken promise. (I’m not sure that math is correct, as my dads focused my learning on social justice… and rightly so.)
Seek a Code of Conduct for space-faring nations. This idea didn’t get a lot of traction during the campaign. Admittedly it’s a bit “out there.” But if we’re ever going to bring the glorious future that Gene Roddenberry envisioned in Star Trek to life, America needs to take the initiative and develop a workable treaty to govern how the nations of the earth interact in space. It’s the first step in creating a workable Starfleet. But again: nothing from Team Obama.
Recognize the Armenian genocide. You may not care about this issue, but I’ll tell you who does: Armenians. Sadly, I guess the Armenian lobby isn’t powerful enough in Washington D.C. (or perhaps the Turkish lobby is too powerful, I don’t know) to motivate action on this issue, and thus: another promise broken!
And those are just off the top of my head. If I could get my Internet connection working, I’m sure I could come up with many more.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama would say anything to get elected… just like any other politician. Which is a shame. If he doesn’t plan on honoring the myriad promises he made in seeking election, we need to consider action. I don’t know what that action would be yet – in our very flawed two-party system, even if we managed to impeach him for breaking his word, or replace him with someone else in four months, much less four years… we’d very likely get someone even worse – Gods forbid, someone like Jeb Bush. Another creature of political habit who only excels at one thing: getting elected. At least by electing Obama, we’ve proved we aren’t racist; perhaps we can replace him with a woman and prove we’re no longer sexist either.)
That is most certainly not “change you can believe in.” How do you sleep, Mister Obama?
